choosing PSU in homebuilt system

First, my englisch aint that great, i think it has something to do with being dutch.....


Anyways..

Ive been reading a lot of posts and something caught my attention.
PSU recomendations.....

I never bothered messuring the power usage of my comp untill recently when i was putting together a new system.

And i came to a conclusion that is not very popular i suspect.

Most PSU's are overkill.


A X2 3800 with a 7600 graphics card, raid 0 HDD setup will never go above 120Watts of power used. Whatever the load.

I tried a friends card, a 7900 and never went above 140 Watts.


So maybe in SLI mode the power usage will raise above 200 Watts, but not by much.

In theory a 350 Watt power supply would be more than suffiecient.
A unit like this would not heat up to much because it would not be taken to its limits.

It is true however that a lot off PSU's out there claim to be able to supply, say 350 Watts, but will only do so in peak loads and can not sustain such output continously. They are more likely to only be able to sustain a 250Watts of continous power.


Sooo.....what i am trying to say is.....

There is a reason for the price difference between certain power supplies.
A 430 Watt unit could run you about 40 dollars or you can obtain a 430Watt unit costing around 100 dollars.
The first one might run out of juice when push comes to shove because it is just a peak load indication while the second will break no sweat what so ever under any load.

I am also saying, dont stare yourself blind at specsheet numbers, real world performance is where it counts.

700 Watt, 1000 Watt power supplies are only good if you planning on powering your ego a bit aswell besides your pc.


And one thing about the X2 vs. conroe thing.....

Best bang for the buck is all that counts, after price drops X2 the X2 remains the price perfromance king, more or less.
in other words, you can just get a damn fine CPU for 200 dollars.

2 weeks ago i would have chosen a conroe, now after the price drops i would have chosen a X2 again.